Valec

Handle application secrets securely

Valec is a CLI tool to handle application secrets securely using AWS DynamoDB and KMS. Valec enables you to manage application secrets in your favorite VCS.

Workflow

1. Set up DynamoDB and KMS (first time only).

   $ valec init

2. Store secrets in local file. Values are encrypted.

   $ valec encrypt AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAxxxx --add production.yaml
   $ valec encrypt AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=yyyyyyyy --add production.yaml
   $ cat production.yaml
   - key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
     value: AQECAHi1osu...
   - key: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
     value: AQECAHi1osu...

3. Save secrets to DynamoDB table.

   $ valec sync production.yaml
   No secret will be deleted.
   
   2 secrets of production namespace will be added.
   - AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
   - AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
   2 secrets of production namespace were successfully added.

4. Use stored secrets in your application.

   Use stored secrets directly:

   $ valec exec bin/server

   or use as dotenv:

   $ valec dump production > .env
   $ bin/server

Usage

valec dotenv

Generate .env using .env.sample if exists. This command is equivalent to valec dump --template .env.sample --output .env.

$ valec dotenv
$ cat .env
HOGE=fuga

valec dump

Dump secrets in dotenv format

$ valec dump hoge
HOGE=fuga

With -t TEMPLATE flag, Valec dumps secrets as the form of embedding them in the given dotenv file. To override all values written in dotenv file, please specify --override flag too.

$ cat .env.sample
FOO=
HOGE=hogehoge
hogehoge
YEAR=2015

# comment
SSSS=

$ valec dump hoge -t .env.sample
FOO=barbarbar
HOGE=hogehoge
hogehoge
YEAR=2015

# comment
SSSS=

$ valec dump hoge -t .env.sample > .env

To write dump data to .env file, you can use shell redirect or --output flag.

$ valec dump hoge > .env
$ valec dump hoge --output .env

--output flag preserves the specified section in existing .env. If the given .env already exists and has separator (# =====, # ----- and so on), the below lines are preserved. Please look the following example.

$ cat .env
FOO=bar
DATABASE_URL=postgres://dev.example.com/dev

# ===
DATABASE_URL=postgres://prod.example.com/prod

# Added AWESOME_API_KEY
$ valec dump dev --output .env
$ cat .env
FOO=bar
DATABASE_URL=postgres://dev.example.com/dev
AWESOME_API_KEY=dev1234abcd

# ===
DATABASE_URL=postgres://prod.example.com/prod

valec encrypt

Encrypt secret

With --key KEY flag, you can choose KMS key for encryption. With --add FILE flag, encrypted secret will be added to the specified file.

$ valec encrypt NAME=awesome DATABASE_URL=postgres://example.com/dbname
AQECAHi1osu8IsEnPMo1...
AQECAHi1osu8IsEnPMo1...

$ valec encrypt NAME=awesome --add secrets.yml --key valec-qa
$ cat secrets.yml
kms_key: valec-qa
secrets:
- key: NAME
  value: AQECAHi1osu8IsEnPMo1...

Secrets can also be read from stdin using dash (-),

$ cat .env
NAME=awesome
DATABASE_URL=postgres://example.com/dbname

$ cat .env | valec encrypt -

or entered interactively.

$ valec encrypt -i NAME DATABASE_URL
NAME:

valec exec

Execute commands using stored secrets

$ env | grep HOGE

$ valec exec hoge env | grep HOGE
HOGE=fuga

valec init

Initialize Valec environment

These resources will be created:

• KMS key and alias (default: valec)
• DynamoDB table (default: valec)

$ valec init

valec list

List stored secrets

Only secret keys are shown by default. To show values together, use --show-values flag.

# List secret keys stored in DynamoDB
$ valec list hoge
HOGE

# List secret keys and values together
$ valec list hoge --show-values
HOGE: fuga

# List secrets stored in local file
$ valec list -f hoge.yaml

valec namespaces, valec ns

List all namespaces

$ valec namespaces
hoge

valec sync

Synchronize secrets between local file and DynamoDB

Argument must be a directory that contains secret files. hoge.yaml will be synchronized to hoge namespace.

$ ls secrets
fuga.yaml       hoge.yaml

$ valec sync secrets
fuga
  No secret will be deleted.
  No secret will be added.
hoge
  No secret will be deleted.
  1 secrets of hoge namespace will be added.
    + HOGE
  1 secrets of hoge namespace were successfully added.

If --dry-run flag is given, Valec does not modify DynamoDB table actually. This might be useful for CI use.

$ valec sync secrets --dry-run
fuga
  No secret will be deleted.
  No secret will be added.
hoge
  No secret will be deleted.
  1 secrets of hoge namespace will be added.
    + HOGE

valec validate

Validate secrets in local files

$ valec validate secrets
secrets/fuga.yaml
secrets/hoge.yaml
All secrets are valid.

When invalid values exist:

$ valec validate secrets
secrets/fuga.yaml
secrets/hoge.yaml
  Secret value is invalid. Please try `valec encrypt`. key=HOGE
Failed to validate secrets. filename=tmp/hoge.yaml: Some secrets are invalid.

Common flags

Flag	Description	Default
--debug	Debug mode	false
--key KEY	KMS key alias	valec
--no-color	Disable colorized output	false
--table-name	DynamoDB table name	valec
--region	AWS Region	(empty)

Development

Retrieve this repository and build using make.

$ go get -d github.com/dtan4/valec
$ cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/dtan4/valec
$ make deps
$ make

Author

Daisuke Fujita (@dtan4)

License